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What Brazil can learn from Malaysia

There’s really nothing good to say about the baffling disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Families are in distress without closure, governments around the world are on an expensive wild goose chase at the bottom of the ocean, and everyone’s a little bit embarrassed that in this day and age an entire 777 can go missing without a trace.

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and the subsequent botched response by the Malaysian government is a clarion call to governments everywhere.

When the world doesn’t know much about a country, it only takes one incident to cloud its image for a very long time.

And when that country is defensive about its portrayal abroad, and combative against negative press, it makes the image only look worse.

Meanwhile, a world away, another country is gearing up to be in the spotlight in this year’s biggest world event, and the harsh light of day doesn’t look good on Brazil.

The Malaysian government and the Brazilian government are very different animals, and clearly a plane disaster and a major sporting tournament are very different events. But they do share one thing, a global focus on a country that isn’t often in the news.

Exemplifying its combative attitude towards foreign criticism, last week the Ministry of Finance went out of its way to publish a note criticizing S&P’s decision to downgrade the country’s sovereign debt to one grade above junk. This reversed years of Brazil’s triumphant march towards “investment grade” status and is an unequivocal indictment of several years of weak growth and unsustainable spending.

FIFA General Secretary has already accepted that things have gone badly, and in an interview last week admitted “Brazil’s problems will lead to a reassessment of how the tournament is organized in the future” and that “it’s a lesson and definitely we will act differently and we will have to find a different way of working in Russia in 2018”.

One of my favorite sayings in Portuguese is “para ingles ver”, a time-tested expression that means “for the English to see”. An odd turn of phrase, the saying was born in the 19th century when locals covered up illicit activity on its shores after the British banned maritime slave trading to Brazil. Instead of complying, local lords found ways of camouflaging activity and mounting Potemkin villages of sorts to fool patrolling British ships.

The press has already begun to take notice, and the coverage of the games is unlikely to improve before the Opening Ceremony. Combined with the social media storm that’s sure to erupt when persnickety foreigners find things wrong with their expensive hotel rooms, and locals create roadblocks in major cities in protest, Brazil’s government is not at all ready to be seen in a negative light.

Heck, if one downgrade by a ratings agency can turn the Ministry of Finance on its head, there’s no telling what the World Cup can do (particularly in an election year).

With two months left before an inevitable day of reckoning, maybe it’s time for Brazilians to start practicing the words “I’m sorry” and “We’ll do everything we can” rather than “You’re wrong” and “We know better”.